


A Fragile Bullet

by MistyBeethoven



Series: "Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You With a Story" [76]
Category: Street Kings (2008)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Attempted Murder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, BBW, Bodyguard, Bodyguard Romance, Cheating, Crimes & Criminals, Deception, Demisexuality, Difficult Decisions, Drama, Drama & Romance, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Falling In Love, Lies, Loss of Virginity, Love, Love Stories, Manipulative Relationship, Murder, Overweight, POV Alternating, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Police, Protectiveness, Romance, Secretaries, Seduction, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, Shyness, Virginity, Weight Issues, crime noir
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:55:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27535636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: When my boss and his mistress are murdered in an assumed mob hit at a restaurant in L.A. and I am left both wounded and made a witness, Detective Tom Ludlow is given the unwanted assignment of guarding me.What I have no way of knowing, though, is that the handsome police officer is under the control of the corrupt L.A. Police Department and desperately searching for a way out. Having accepted the task of watching me on the promise he will be granted freedom, Ludlow soon discovers that his position as my guard is for show only and that I will be terminated within weeks.His hands tied, and his estranged girlfriend Grace Garcia's life threatened also, Tom Ludlow decides to seduce me to fulfill my unrealized dreams of a romance, at least, before my death. When he slowly finds himself falling in love, however, the cop is forced to make difficult decisions and try to find a way to save not only my life but his own now, as well.
Relationships: Tom Ludlow & James Biggs, Tom Ludlow (Street Kings 2008)/Me, Tom Ludlow/Grace Garcia
Series: "Yes, I Really Am This Pathetic!" or "How to Say I Love You With a Story" [76]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589944
Comments: 8
Kudos: 3





	1. Fragile Bullets

**Author's Note:**

> Tom Ludlow finally! Step into my room! 
> 
> To anyone who has been following this series, they have known that poor Tom has proven to be a problem for me. I've wanted to write a "Street Kings" entry for a while but couldn't come up with a good enough plot.
> 
> I thought of something featuring him as my bodyguard but that was as far as I got.
> 
> Then a few weeks back I watched, "The Bodyguard" and I thought..."Anything but something like that."
> 
> And then this came to me, thank God!
> 
> I also came up with Julian Gitchie's entry today. So that should be coming soon! :D <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom Ludlow receives a new assignment.

_**Prologue** _

_"If you want to take something down, Tommy, sometimes what you need is a weaker bullet," Thomas Ludlow's father had informed him when he had only been six years old._

_The man he barely ever saw, except for when he had time off from his work at the police department or when the urge to leave his favorite stool at whatever bar he had not been barred from, had been staring at a thin long bullet held in his hand and the boy had looked at it both in curiosity and a little fear. Several times the son of the Detective had found stray bullets around the apartment and his mother had always shouted at him in rage whenever he would even so much as glance at one._

_Young Thomas Ludlow looked at the man, whom was a beloved stranger, turning the bullet around in his fingers and wished the policeman would look at either him or his mother in that same way, with that same love and adoration ._

_"That's what you need...a fragile bullet..." the cop had stated, his bloodshot eyes watering a little bit more._

_And often, so many years later, Thomas Ludlow would wonder if it was the exact same bullet that his father had used to end his own life when the last bar in town would not let him inside unless he finally paid his tab._

_**CHAPTER ONE: Fragile Bullets** _

I hadn't even been aware that a gun had been fired.

That was often the thing that haunted me in the hospital when I first awakened and the events from the restaurant came rushing all back to me with the force of that first fired bullet.

Not that the gun itself had been silent.

There had been a noise behind me at the start but when you aren't expecting something like that to happen on a day which had otherwise been perfectly normal, you put it all down to something else entirely. In the middle of the five star restaurant my boss liked to take lunch at with his mistress of three years, I just pegged it down to the sound of a champagne bottle being opened, at a table behind me, while some other business man or mobster was celebrating with his friends or lover, or maybe even both.

It was only as I was reaching out to take the file that Mr. Delacourt had just signed that my eyes noted the sudden odd glazed look to his icy blue eyes and traveled up to his creased forehead to see the fresh hole there and the blood spilling out from it and becoming trapped in those same folds. Our gaze held for two seconds longer, his no longer truly seeing me and my own slowly trying to process what had just happened.

By the time, Delacourt fell into his bowl of lobster bisque, I had pretty well figured it all out.

His mistress, a girl named Shirley la Roque, figured it out too.

She started to scream then, alerting the rest of the restaurant to what had happened. Her dolled up face turned and looked behind me, her eyes resting on something in recognition before the sound came again. Now, I knew, however, what the sound was. And as Shirley turned back to look at me, her mouth bleeding from where the bullet had entered, I saw her odd expression before she fell onto the table, choking on her own blood.

I made the mistake of looking back then.

I reflexively wanted to see what the dead mistress of my boss had seen when she had looked behind me. I also wanted to see where the bullet that I had not been expecting, the one that would later often feel like it hadn't become embedded in Charles Delacourt's skull but had gone all the way through to tear through my own life also and shatter it completely. As the restaurant went crazy from the realization of what had happened, and from the sound of more guns being shot, I looked over my shoulder and saw the man standing there. _Clearly_ , I saw his face.

It was more the gun he was raising in my direction which seemed to come to brilliant light within my vision though.

I foresaw another bullet, the one saved for Delacourt's secretary, coming to meet me as my body would crumble on the floor and I would lie there unseeing, my overweight body the final grotesque part of the restaurant massacare's triptych.

Only it wasn't the bullet that brought my body to the restaurant floor. As I was staring in fright at the exit for the bullet belonging to the gun aimed directly at my head, a body slipped in behind my back. His face was unseen but his hands certainly were felt as he grabbed me, pulling my head back by and pressing down on my forehead. The unseen man grabbed a knife close to the corpse of my boss and realization made me finally begin to fight back out of my shock. I was about to scream for him to stop, preferring the bullet to what I knew he had planned for me, my large body struggling in his embrace, when steel met one side of my bared throat and ran hurriedly to the opposite side.

Blood was coming out, hot and quick and it ran down my neck as I fell to the floor, regretting many things in my life.

But most of all that there would be few to miss me when they heard on the evening news that I had died.

* * *

When Detective 2nd Grade Tom Ludlow walked into the station, it was already buzzing with the shooting which had taken place at Redmond's. He'd only made it to hallway to the main offices when he'd already learnt that there were seven dead, a mash up of customers and the help, and one lucky son of a bitch whom had only been wounded. Several witnesses had already been dragged in, and while their stories were varying on a few points, this much had been discerned: there had been, at least, more than one killer.

"The Captain wants to see you, Ludlow," an officer name Vasquez stated, coming down the hallway and bearing the look that all rookies wore whenever something big like this happened. It was an all too human jumble of fear and sincere, but also a little too heightened to be true, sorrow blended with an overpowering excitement. It was the level of excitement which inevitably predicted whether or not the newcomer had the balls to stay. If the sadness outweighed that one component, no matter how well they had done in training, they would be out the door in a matter of months. Fear was detrimental to an officer's staying in the profession enough as it was, but it would either break someone or be beaten by them in a far shorter matter of time. There was no other option. The sorrow was far more insidious and would force some rookies to hand in their resignations when the fear had been conquered already.

Vasquez's fate looked to be good in regards to his career as a policeman, Ludlow thought. He seemed more buzzing on adrenaline than on melancholia.

The rookie had even forgotten to treat him in the wary way that everyone new to the force but aware of his reputation did.

Tom left the young officer behind, turning his thoughts more to what his superior wanted to talk to him about. If it had to do with the shooting he only hoped it wouldn't require him going to the hospital. Better to play bad cop and to interrogate a witness (even without the aid of a phonebook) than to have to go to the hospital and make the night even worse by seeing Grace. Espesically after the argument they had had that morning. It was always wiser to let her fiery latin temper cool down these days before making it rise again by reminding her of his existence and the unfinished war they had waged with each other. Luckily, with only one survivor and the rest either in the morgue or at the station, the chances of it were slimmer than most of the waists of the senior officers at the precinct.

And if not, in his current position he had the possibility of getting out of it, at least. The only good repercussion of what had happened close to two years ago, Tom thought with bitterness.

Entering the office of Captain William O'Connor, Tom Ludlow saw the same wary look which had been vacant from Vasquez's eyes this particular night. The man, blonde, in his early fifties and with a heavily wrinkled face resembling an old pirate's map, studied him like someone might if they were forced to pick up a snake with a head at either of its ends. O'Connor was afraid of being bitten and Ludlow was only tired of seeing that expression on mostly every fucking face he saw.

"You wanted to see me?" Tom asked, taking a seat in the chair before the desk which was piled high with files.

"You've heard about the incident at Redmond's?" the older man asked, his thick eyebrows rising to almost reach his hairline.

"Two seconds after I walked through the door."

"I take it you heard about the survivor then?"

Tom Ludlow shifted in the chair and took a deep breath, knowing that he'd, once again, managed to get stuck with the one assignment he didn't want. "Yeah."

O'Connor took the top sheet off from the pile on his desk and handed it to him, almost knocking the tower over in the process. "Any chance you'd like to baby sit her?"

Her. So, it wasn't a son of a bitch but rather a daughter, Ludlow thought with no less resentment.

"You think they'll try again?" Tom said, letting the sheet and the man's arm hang in the air.

The Captain, shrugged. "Looks like a mob hit. Possibly a case her boss was connected to. All the witnesses say she got a good look at the guy who did it before someone else tried to kill her."

"Someone else?" Tom said confused, grabbing the file out from his superior's hands. Tom gazed at the sheet with the woman's stats but no photo. She had just said goodbye to her thirties was overweight, of middle height and had worked as a secretary for the first man killed at the overpriced restaurant, a high profile attorney, named Mr. Delacourt, it seemed. The attempt on her life had not been made with the gun used to kill her boss but with a knife from off the table and by one of the other men. The resulting wound had been deep enough to cause blood to flow but it had also missed the main arteries, probably due to her struggle and size. It had scared her enough, however to cause ger to faint, an act which had probably saved her life.

Squinting at the information, and sorry for the woman, Ludlow still saw it as a job requiring more of his attention than he was willing to give. Especially when he was feeling more and more trapped inside of a job he had lost his love for but was not allowed to leave. The sadness had finally won out; just as it had with his father.

"No," Thomas Ludlow answered tossing the paper back on the desk.

The Captain looked weary but not to the extent as when he expected the Detective to manage to weasel out of the order. A common occurrence following the death of his former boss, Captain Jack Wander.

"It would only be guarding her room," O'Connor stated. "That and questioning her when she's ready..."

Tom waited for what was coming next.

"And staying with her when she goes back to her home out in..."

The Detective exhaled loudly and stood, heading towards the door.

"Look, Tom," William O'Connor said, his voice rising along with his body as he stood. "This _wasn't_ my idea."

Knowing what the words meant, Tom turned to look at the senior cop from over his shoulder. That same shoulder suddenly felt heavy, burdened with yet another thing he was expected to take care of whether he wanted to or not. More of those had been appearing and the accumulation of them were breaking his back and making him feel older with each passing day. Sometimes, he found himself longing for the time when the Chief and his favorite servant, internal investigation man Captain James Bigg, hadn't stolen him from Wander to be their own personal lapdog instead. Sad fact of life: you always seemed to be trading one devil for another.

Still, Tom was tempted to tell O'Connor just to pass on a message to the two men above to go fuck themselves; he was not a babysitter but still a serviceable policeman.

That was when the Captain held out another piece of paper, far smaller than the one bearing Erin Smyth's information.

"James Biggs told me to give you this," his voice was steady but his hand was shaking, as if what he was holding was just another two-headed serpent.

Looking at the note in tired suspicion, Tom Ludlow still found himself walking towards it and ripping it out from O'Connor's hands.

Opening it, the Detective saw the only five words that could have possibly tempted him into letting go of his reluctance and guard the wounded woman:

**Do this and your out.**


	2. Hospital Bound Trajectory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While I wake to find myself in the hospital, Tom Ludlow encounters Grace Garcia before fulfilling his assignment to question and guard me.

I was in too much pain to not remember what had happened when I opened my eyes. Likewise, the room was so sterile and cold that I could not have mistaken it for anything but being inside of a hospital. This was not heaven; I was not dead and the skin on my throat felt hopelessly numb but not sore. I brought my hand to it and felt the stitches more than the actual contact of my fingertips.

 _"They saved me,"_ I thought but felt somehow restless by the realization.

I had miraculously been given a reprieve but I was thrown back into a world which I had seen all too clearly when I had feared it had been stolen from me. I remembered my last thought before darkness: how no one would mourn for my death.

Opening my eyes, I was well aware that nobody would rejoice for my life either.

Certainly not least of which was the man whom had taken Charles Delacourt and Shirley La Roque's life.

I had been given a clear view of the killer's face. Any film or tv show I had ever seen where someone was offered such a chance rarely delighted either the criminal or the innocent themselves. Unless they had caught him before I had passed out, my safety was not assured and I could still end up dead.

What I could not understand was the fact that he had not been the one to try to kill me first.

The identity of my attempted murderer (though it concerned me more than even what had happened to my boss and his mistress) had been kept from me. I had felt his actions but not once had I glimpsed his face, not even in the reflection offered by the knife he had used to slit my neck.

My fingers fooled around with the stitches again and I realized that something had made it not go in deep enough. I had been spared but only to face a future of uncertainty.

"Miss Smyth, you're awake," an accented voice said, pulling back the curtains around my bed and revealing a pretty hispanic nurse with a name tag which read **Garcia**. "How do you feel?"

I swallowed, fearful of the first word spoken after the wound, but felt little pain only the sensation you receive after a filling at the dentist. "Fine," I replied in a hoarse voice.

"Good to hear," she remarked. "A Doctor should be with you shortly. You are a very lucky woman."

"Yes," I said, feeling that it was true and also guilty at the part of me that was less than overjoyed by it.

"Seven were killed," Garcia stated, writing something down on the chart at the end of the bed, which I assumed was either the time I had awakened or the time that she had come to check on me, which were both practically the same.

"Seven?" I asked in shock.

"Yes," she answered. "Of all the staff and clientele at Redmond's only you survived after being targeted."

I shook my head, still unable to feel the sutured slice on my throat as I was similarly having difficulty processing what she had told me. My gratitude at being alive was also turning out to be elusive. I hoped that the latter would eventually show up at around the same time the wound began to hurt and I would need more painkillers.

Garcia was studying me, weighing inside of her mind if she should tell me the next piece of information or not. "The police are very interested in talking with you," she finally said. "Someone should be here soon to talk to you."

"Did they tell you this?" I asked, upset and wondering why the cops would think that after surviving the attempt on my life that I'd wish to use the same damaged throat to tell them about the whole traumatic event.

Nodding, the nurse sighed, an unintentional act. "But my lover, he is a police man too. I know the way that they work."

She said the word "lover" hesitantly, as if the last time she had actually made love to the man had been so long ago it almost made the word obsolete or questionable.

"Do you want me to tell them that you're sleeping when they come?" she suggested.

I looked at the plain white bedsheet that I was under and the outline of the plump body underneath it, so opposite to the trim one of the woman standing at the end of the bed. Seeing someone so soon after the massacre, did not appeal to me but I was equally aware that time was important when making a statement to the police. Memories could fade or be altered as time passed. I'd learned that from the cases Delacourt handled, the ones which I had often witnessed the progress of over months. If I hoped to find my boss' killer and resume my life without constant worry, talking to the police was integral.

"No," I answered. "You can send them in."

"It might be a little while. You might actually be sleeping when they do show up."

"It's fine," I reiterated. "Just have them wake me up then."

* * *

By the time Tom Ludlow reached the hospital, the reporters had already swarmed around the building and had also infiltrated the inside of it, as well. Ludlow passed a flock of them waiting outside and repeatedly encountered one of them passing themselves off as a visiting guest of some other patient in their search for the sole survivor of the hit at Redmond's. A few of them were even stupid enough to try to approach him for information, blindly hopeful he would have suddenly become warm to them for reasons only their overly inventive minds could have completely understood.

"Hey Ludlow," one of them shouted when they saw him walking down a corridor and quickly rushed to his side, either not hearing the way the policeman swore when he saw them coming or intentionally ignoring it to live inside their momentary delusion. "Anything you can tell us?" the balding man in the bright blue blazer and clashing pink shirt asked.

"No," Tom replied, trying to be on his best behavior now that escape had finally been offered to him.

"Come on," the reporter begged. "What's their sex? How were they wounded? Did they see anything?"

Shaking his head, the detective stated, "I haven't even talked to them yet."

The man looked upset by the lack of a pronoun but continued his trek, until Ludlow managed to enter the nurse's station and the scum decided to peel off before he was accused of sexual impropriety.

The few nurses inside of the room looked at Tom in recognition from a time when he had been welcomed in Grace Garcia's life. Now they appeared nervous and curious all at once. Ashamed that he had stepped on to their turf and caused them a mixture of both emotions, Tom sighed and quickly asked for Grace. While initially reluctant to see his estranged lover, he now was more in a hurry to get it over with, viewing it as inevitable and reasoning it as a possible landmine if he didn't.

If he came to the hospital without trying to see his girlfriend at least _once_ it would become one more piece of ammo she could fire off at him during their next argument.

He was quickly informed that she was on the same floor where the witness cum victim to the Redmond massacre was being held. Ludlow thanked the pretty blonde nurse named Clarissa, whom had told him, and then headed for the right floor.

When he arrived on it, he saw Grace walking down the corridor towards him. Her eyes landing on him, Ludlow watched them make a sudden journey to gaze at the ceiling and he could read how frustrated she was over the fact that of all the cops in the precinct they had sent the one she least wanted to see her way. If she knew his motivations for coming, she would have been even less pleased, Tom knew. However, knowing his presence had been unwanted by Garcia he found himself suddenly grateful to be there, his resentment towards his gradually slipping away lover in full effect.

"Follow me," Grace stated once having reached him. She proceeded in leading him back down the corridor but as she neared the room Captain O'Connor had told him where he could find and guard Smyth, the nurse led him to the neighbouring room instead and quickly closed the door behind them. She cursed something lowly in Spanish as she stared at the hospital room's clean floor and then raised her vision to meet the Police detective's. "Are you here for me or for _her_?" she asked, looking aware of the answer but professionally needing to hear it first.

"Her," Tom replied.

She turned to look to the side, her head bobbing up and down. "My luck," Grace Garcia spat. "There is a full force...why did they send you? Did you request it?"

Her suspicion of him was so high and her trust so low, it was natural for her mind to jump on suspecting him to twist the situation to his profit, Tom realized, and he felt the same defeated anger that the woman, whom once had helped soothe him, was causing repeatedly in him now. "I was practically forced into it, if it matters," he defended and watched her mind then flop to the other reason to deride him.

"So, they made you come here. You had now desire to see me."

Tom Ludlow, clenched his fists once and regretted having fallen with such stupid ease into another landmine. "Yeah, and now I should go do my job," he retaliated, starting to open the door, only to have the nurse push it back instantly. He met her dark eyes and saw a fiery warning in them.

"She's nice, Tom. Nice and vulnerable. Take it easy on her, okay?"

Tom Ludlow nodded, wounded by her intimation but too proud to let it show. Grace was, in fact, saying that she knew the damage he could cause by her own relationship with him and the brutality he had offered others in his line of work. A rage sailed through his mind and soul like a bullet projected from the barrel of a gun but he silenced it. She had no right to insinuate that he would be anything but courteous to the surviving victim. He always was when he was certain of their innocence and if they were a woman.

Once Grace had known that too but those days apparently were far behind them now.

"Well, that might be difficult since I was planning on ripping out her sutures and then strangling her to death with them," Tom remarked, opening the door with enough force to make the nurse stumble backwards and for him to wonder if he had been completely honest with himself about his potential for violence against women. He opened his mouth to apologize when she looked at him with the same immovable acrimony and he knew it was useless anyway.

Instead Tom walked through the door back into the corridor and into the next room where Erin Smyth was recuperating after her trauma. Grace was quick on his heels but stopped herself from yelling at him as she noticed what had caused him to stop in his tracks.

The woman whom had come to within half an inch of losing her life was sleeping peacefully on her side in the hospital bed, so exhausted or drugged that she was unaware that her room had been entered. Tom Ludlow's first thought was that it was a good thing that he had been assigned to be her bodyguard; it would have been far too easy for someone to have entered her room and finished the job right there and then.

He could see Grace turning to look at him, but his eyes remained on his ward, half in defiance to his close to erstwhile girlfriend, but also half in curiosity of the woman lying on the bed. Her hair was a big tangle of brown auburnish curls, her closed eyes widely spaced, her nose cute but leaning towards big and her top lip thin while g6er bottom one was larger. Smyth resembled a child almost as she slept peacefully and his eyes lowered to her tgroat to see the Doctor's handiwork but found the view obstructed by her lowered head and her hands placed to her heart.

Tom finally turned to the nurse and nodded his head, motioning her away. Garcia was heading to the door while the cop settled himself into a chair placed to the side of the patient's bed.

He breathed in deeply, not ready to wake her but not knowing how to spend his time waiting. Ludlow's eyes darted to her throat again, trying to catch a glimpse of a stitch from this new angle but all he saw was the swell of her large breasts, which were decidedly not childlike. His eyes lingered on them too long, Tom knew, but he found it hard to take them away. When he managed to, finally, they traveled lower only to rest on the curved rise of her hip and he thought of his arm riding that same curve and felt arousal both strong and unexpected.

Running a hand over his face, Tom looked away again only to find his eyes back on her softly rising and falling breasts. Arousal did not flee as he had hoped but intensified by studying the sleeping form of the sleeping woman. She was overweight, as her profile had stated, but she was still attracting him. It had been weeks since Grace and he had gotten along well enough to even have a healthy dose of hate sex. The farthest they had come to anything resembling intimacy was facing each other unintentionally during the night the few times they had agreed to share the same bed. Now he was halfway to getting a hard on from regarding a woman, whom had almost just died a few hours before.

"Get a grip, Tom," he chastised himself, running the hand all the way back over his face for a second time.

This time, however, when the journey was completed, he saw not the lids of the woman's closed eyes but two large and beautiful, grayish-green orbs looking at him through the semi darkness of the room.

"Your name is Tom?" she asked in a voice rough but intelligible.

"Yeah," he replied, embarrased and hoping she hadn't caught him staring at her chest and that she wouldn't see the slight bulge to his pants.

"You're the policeman they sent to ask me questions?"

Tom Ludlow nodded. "And to guard you too."

"They didn't catch him," she mumbled to herself and then addressed him again. "They think it will come to that?"

Taking another deep breath and feeling his arousal fading at the woman's obvious fear, Tom met her eyes and replied, "Unfortunately."

Erin looked away first, moving her chubby body into a sitting position and offering him the first full glimpse of the stitches on the nasty looking wound on her neck, as well, as an even better one of her bust. Tom Ludlow felt a violent stirring of both sympathy and sexual attraction as she replied sadly, "I was afraid of that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Keanu; 
> 
> I watched the film "Babe" tonight. It has Christmas in it but not enough to warrant a December viewing. Usually, by accident, I always end up eating pig on the day I watch it, but not this time.
> 
> I like Fly and Rex. This will sound strange but I find their relationship sexy and how they fight and then are licking each other's faces at the end. I also find it sexy thinking of Lady and the Tramp having sex. It's what inspired "A Painful Need." Sigh. I'm weird. I also find you sexy when you're barking like a dog in "Freaked." You look like you're having fun doing it. 
> 
> Know what else I find sexy? Your left handedness. I saw Farmer Hoggett writing with his left hand tonight but it wasn't as sexy as when you do it. I could watch you writing/printing forever.
> 
> But then you'd get tired.
> 
> And I'd rather you get tired doing something else with your hands on me other than just writing.
> 
> Much love,  
> Erin  
> XO XO  
> :D <3


	3. A Proper Defense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Tom Ludlow questions me regarding Delacourt's murder, I find an attraction forming to the handsome but taciturn police detective.

I had opened my eyes to find a handsome man staring at me in the dim hospital room.

It was the first time that had ever happened in my life...

Waking up to a man.

He was in his thirties, had nice eyes that were small and most probably brown in shade. His hair was dark brown, as well, and he wore a serious, almost pained, expression as he had been watching me, as if he did not want to be there. Still, there was nothing that indicated that my appearance had been the thing to bother him. It seemed more or less the general demeanor of all cops whom had grown weary of their careers or possibly even their lives.

With a little sadness, and far more longing, I realized that he was just the type of man I'd want to wake up to find studying me, only in a normal bed and not the one in the sterile and almost inhuman room. When he had started to talk, it had only strengthened that conviction. Voices had always been one of the defining attractions in a man for me. The timber, the depth, the way that it was used. I absently thought of what Tom Ludlow's voice would sound like saying dirty things to me, things both gentle and rough, kind and selfish and what type of conversations we would have post coitum with his head lying on a pillow by my side and the smell of sweat and sex in the air around us.

His asking me questions had to be a good enough substitute, it turned out.

At least, it was something.

And if it had taken nearly getting killed to get this close to a sexual fantasy, and the threat of "nearly" turning into nothing, it was something good to come from a terror, I accepted.

"Do you know why anyone would want to kill your boss, Ms. Smyth?" he asked.

"Miss... _Miss_ Smyth, but you can call me Erin," I corrected and offered, hoping that he would. To hear him use his voice on my name seemed akin to having him use his hands on my body, so, it was worth the attempt, I assuaged my timidity.

He looked at me, a gaze that betrayed it hardly mattered and that he wasn't sure he could make our relationship friendly enough to ever call me by my first name, shattering my hope. "Is there anyone who would want to kill your boss?" he asked, foregoing honorifics and names altogether.

"He was an attorney," I commented with a shrug. "His career was spent making people want to kill him."

Tom Ludlow surrendered to a small smile then. It was clearly involuntary and he suddenly looked even younger and free from some of the trouble he had brought in with him when he had come into my room, while I was sleeping. It was contagious, his happiness making me happy in turn, and for a few seconds our eyes met before we both became embarrassed and looked away, losing our mutual smiles.

"Well, anyone in _particular_?" he rephrased it.

My mind quickly thought of the occassional hate mail he had received and how there hadn't really been any in weeks. None sent from prisons or from the rich or poor of L.A. that he had helped to send away. "I...I don't know...he hasn't been pissing off too many people recently. There's been a lull in threats. He's working on an important case but I wasn't allowed to know too much about it."

The police detective gave half a nod.

"How about the woman he was with?" Ludlow asked. "A Ms. la Roque, I believe."

"Yes," I replied not sure if I should mention she had been Delacourt's mistress. "But I barely know anything about her."

"What was the nature of their relationship?"

I breathed in deeply. "They were lovers."

"He told you?"

I blushed. "No...but there were enough instances to...um...raise my suspicions "

The detective studied me intensely again. "Did his wife know?"

"Maybe," I replied. "Mrs. Delacourt rarely came into the office, though. I barely saw her except at Christmas parties etc...and I barely went to those. I think she was grateful that I was his secretary..."

"Any reason why?" Ludlow asked in curiosity.

I met his eyes, wondering why, for a policeman he seemed unobservant enough to not see the reason. "I'm overweight," I stated. "Hardly affair worthy. Probably why Delacourt hired me, in the first place. I made a good shield: It was hard to see past me."

The policeman's reaction was hard to discern regarding my self deprecation. But most of his responses were. His eyes fell to my body and my breasts and I thought he looked at them a little too long for it to be wholly appropriate. _"He's needing some action,"_ I thought, recognizing the look from a few instances in my life. _"He either doesn't have a girlfriend or she's been holding out on him. In any case, he must be wanting it pretty badly to be checking you out."_

Insult aside, I still found myself flattered and glad to know that the man wasn't a fatphobe, at least.

Shy and noting that he had become so, too, I stumbled forward, "His wife...she's never...st-struck me as the type to pay for a massacre at a public restaurant to get revenge. She'd be more apt to lay claim to all of Delacourt's money and assets first."

Ludlow did not comment but asked another question. "Anything strike you odd while it was happening?"

I thought of it and my mind rested on the strange look Shirley had given me before her death.

"Was there something?" he repeated, reading my expression.

"She looked behind me before she died, and then looked at me...I think she wanted to tell me something but dying kind of got in the way of it."

Ludlow looked curious and amused again. Unfortunately, I soon yawned against my will and wiped both from off his face.

"You should get some rest. Sorry for interrupting you," he apologized before reminding me of how isolated and lonely I was in the city of the Angels. "Want me to contact anyone? Let them know that you're okay?"

* * *

The look on Smyth's face, when he asked that simple question intended to help, made Thomas Ludlow suddenly feel guilty. She avoided his eyes and looked at her chubby hands almost as much like a child's as her face had been while she was asleep. He knew her answer before her lips stopped pouting long enough to talk. "Nobody here. My mom and sister are in Ontario, Canada. I...I don't want to worry them."

Her concern was admirable but Tom had seen far too many people use such reasonings and leave behind people whom spent their lives resenting them for it. He thought of his father being taken away on the stretcher and how he had been staring at his outline under the sheet when he had felt the first real bitter sting of hate at the man for abandoning him.

"You should sleep now," Tom said standing. "But in the morning you're calling your family to tell them you're okay," he semi-lectured and felt warm towards her all at once. When she nodded like a reprimanded and repentant child, the feeling only grew.

She placed a stand of curled hair behind her largish ear and she looked so vulnerable doing it that he suddenly thought of her as a lamb he was entrusted to shepherd. "I'll just be outside keeping watch," he stated. "I'm still sorry for interrupting."

"Why?" she returned. "It's your job to protect me."

He stood staring down at his new ward, trying to understand what was so special about her that the word had come down from on top to guard her. What made her safety be the one that could finally write him a ticket out of the prison he had become trapped in? She was alone and shy, just the secretary of a lawyer, one possibly chosen so his wife needn't get so jealous or suspect long hours spent at the office necessarily involving sex.

But Erin Smyth was important to Biggs and those whom held the end of the man's leash. They wanted her alive and had placed him, Thomas Ludlow, in the position to keep her that way, assured that he would always be the _best_ at it. Even with most things in his life falling apart sooner or later, Ludlow was in agreement with their decision too. Dirty cop or clean, he was the best cop on the LAPD. It was the only thing he _was_ good at it he feared.

A fact that would have made even his father proud.

Tom nodded at her, a movement she mimicked with a small smile added to it, and for the first time since he had been given the order, Detective Tom Ludlow was glad that she was in his care.

He could keep her safe and insure that her family in the process would never need to ask "Why?" A horrible question to be left with, Tom Ludlow knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Keanu;
> 
> I read one of your interviews the other day where you were telling about the rather interesting directions given to you during the filming of the Coca Cola and Cornflakes commercials. I'm kicking myself that I didn't get to include that in the fic devoted to them here. I was only a little girl, so I could have written myself going, "Why should he find drinking a cat so great?"
> 
> Then again, I'm happy with how the story turned out. Those tidbits might have made it a little less whimsical and sweetly odd. But...I don't think I will be able to watch those commercials the same way ever again.
> 
> I didn't know what pussy meant until I was about fourteen, actually. My mom passed this baseball cap in a dollar store and said something like, "That's disgusting."
> 
> So, naturally, I stopped to have a look at it. It had a cartoon of these three guys with cats sitting on their heads with the caption: "Men only have pussy on their minds."
> 
> I remembered the song "Greased Lightning..."
> 
> And then I started to figure it all out.
> 
> On a different note, today was the anniversary of John Lennon's death. I'm more of a Monkees fan actually, but it's the strangest thing with the Beatles...While I don't particularly like John, I find myself having the strongest feelings for him of any of the Beatles. His "Nowhere Man" is my favorite song by the group. What I feel for him is not exactly love; it's not exactly hate either. It sits between the two, never knowing which emotion to go closer towards. 
> 
> Have you ever felt that way? Is there someone you have been torn between liking and disliking, so there exists this odd relationship between you and them inside of your mind, one that defies classification or explanation. 
> 
> I feel like a mother sometimes who is disappointed in a child but also holds onto a certain level of concern and care for them. I think he was broken in a way so he sought sometimes to break others too. But then there was the opposite urge to help put things together. An anger and a peace; destruction and construction.
> 
> I guess, the thing is that even though he would probably not reciprocate the feeling, because he spent a lot of his life making fun of the very things I believe in and hold dear, I can't hate him. I've said this before, but if I ever come across John Lennon in heaven, I'd like to think we could be friends. Although he might be too busy imagining it wasn't there.
> 
> The day my mom died, I knew it. My sister phoned me from the palliative care unit of the rest home, where she'd been moved, to tell me to come up right away because she wasn't doing well. I walked to my friend's and neighbour's house so that she could drive me there. 
> 
> It had started to snow. 
> 
> Bill Murray once said that the day they buried John Lennon it snowed. And I remembered that as the snow hit the windshield and I knew what I was being driven towards. 
> 
> A few days before that, I had known my mom wasn't going to survive because there had been two songs playing on the radio on the way to the hospital: Glass Tiger's "Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone" and Green Day's "The Time of Your Life." And on the drive home, my friend, the same one whom would take me in the snow to where my mom was moments away from dying, was playing "The Heart Goes On." 
> 
> Life is either filled with coincidences or signs, depending on how you look at it. I prefer to believe the latter and accept them as blessings.
> 
> Mentioning Bill Murray, though, I forgot to mention something to you yesterday. 
> 
> Tonight, I watched "Scrooged" which was another of Kate's favorites. I always feared it was because she had met Jordan when they both interned at Macleans magazine together. He had moved on up to a higher position, and I suspected she fancied herself as Claire while she saw him as Frank Cross. What I wanted to tell you, though, was that I should actually be grateful to her, I realize now. If she hadn't done what she did, I wouldn't love you. She can have Jordan as far as I'm concerned. 
> 
> Even if you never know me, I'm blessed to have you, Keanu Reeves.
> 
> Much love,  
> Erin  
> XO XO  
> :D <3


	4. Deflection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tom Ludlow guards my room over night and I discover something that disappoints me about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates/Posts may or may not be regular this week as Christmas draws near. But I'll try my best! :D <3

Tom Ludlow stood with his back against the wall, two doors down from Erin's room. If someone came to see her, he would know that it was suspicious. She'd confessed already that she was on her own in the city and that she had very few people whom cared for her. He could not risk the reporters seeing him guarding that one room in particular and descending on it. It would cause a potential distraction and compromise his ward's safety.

Erin was his ward now, he accepted. It had pretty well been a given with James Biggs' promise hanging over his head, but there were always uncalculated tangibles that could have screwed it up.

Like if she had been a grade A bitch.

He already had _one_ woman in his life whom had taken it upon herself to pick out every single flaw he possessed and then magnify them to outrageous proportions. While Grace had once seemed so understanding time had made her into his ultimate critic. Having two of them was less than appealing.

But Erin seemed all right. She was sweet and quiet, shy and helpful. It could all have been caused by having almost died, a factor which could momentarily change anyone, but Ludlow considered himself a good enough judge of character to be able to discern what were someone's natural character traits from what was only the ephemeral result of a disaster.

Of course, there had been Jenny...

He'd been married to her for years and oblivious to the fact she had been cheating on him for, at least, the last one.

And Jack Wander, his boss at the LAPD since practically the beginning.

But sometimes things were too _close_ for you to see them, Ludlow defended his ignorance.

An education which had started with his father.

Closing his eyes, Thomas Ludlow put his head back and tried not to think of the past finding it was virtually impossible.

* * *

I woke up once during the night, following my brief interrogation by Tom Ludlow, and where I was came back quickly again with a painful jolt. My thoat hurt, the room was dark and sounded strange as opposed to my small dwelling, no fan running for white noise, and the seat by my bed was now empty.

I thought of the police officer whom had been sitting there the first time I had awakened and missed seeing his serious face this time around.

 _"Is he still guarding me?"_ I wondered and crawled out of the bed feeling shaky.

With each step, I felt like a fool, traversing the floor of my room to make sure that a virtual stranger was still keeping watch over me. A desperate idiot. I felt better knowing he was there though. The event had left me shaken.

And suprisingly lonely.

Knowing that there was someone _kind_ outside of the door helped.

And that he was _cute_ didn't hurt either.

I opened the door slowly, feeling as if I were doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. When I did not see the back of any uniformed detective, however, I opened it a little more in fear, feeling suddenly vulnerable and abandoned. Peeking around the corner, I quickly saw Tom Ludlow again. His head was down and he looked in very deep, intense thought. I studied his serious features again in an undeniable attraction.

He seemed very much a man on his own. I'd encountered my share of policemen during my time working for Delacourt. They walked in and out of the office, either offering help or witholding it. Most were polite, a fair amount cocky, some more suited to be comedians and others extremely devoted. Ludlow seemed the latter more than some arrogant bastard, thankfully.

Yet, he seemed as alone as I felt in his own way.

I couldn't help but stare at him. Usually opposites were those whom attracted each other. And while there were certainly differences in our probable temperaments, Ludlow seeming confident as opposed to my basic uncertainty and attractive in contrast to my overweight and unglamorous appearance, there were strong similarities there as well.

We were both quiet creatures, wary of others. I could sense this from the way the man failed to look, in fact, seemed to _avoid_ , looking at the nurses and Doctors whom passed him. He did not need them; he had himself, his posture and attitude declared. He loved people to the extent of a man whom valued the weaker and more at risk human lives but that was as far as his generosity extended towards mankind. He was not a part of them. No island was this somber, steel policeman, but certainly no populated city was he either.

It was the same with myself, I understood as I watched his dark eyes staring at the hospital's newely scrubbed floor, lost in thoughts I would never know. I'd been wounded in the early years of my life and the few spare crumbs of social interaction that I had tasted afterwards had not drawn me out of the shell I had made in my childhood.

But whereas my inadequacies and insecurities kept me separate and unwanted, the man sent to guard me, could have easily been accepted. He just did not want to be.

Ludlow's girlfriend, whomever she was, should have been lucky to have have earned his affection, I thought uncharitably towards someone I thought I didn't even know. I would have considered myself _blessed_ to have even won his personal attention for only a moment in time, I knew.

That was when Tom's head raised, turned and his same thoughtful eyes met mine; his notice and subsequent question of me making my cheeks catch on fire.

* * *

Tom had been staring at the tiles, lost in his thoughts, when he had seen the door open from out of the corner of his eye. When it had opened more and Erin's face could actually be seen, he stayed looking at the floor, not sure what she was up to. The only thing he knew for certain was that she had only opened the door more hastily after she had obviously not seen him there. Catching sight of him had been what had made her stop and stare.

He tried not to look at the woman peeking at him through the crack in the doorway but weighed the situation. Was she trying to sneak out? Did she need something? Not directly looking at her, Tom thought of every possible scenario and soon finally realized the that she had probably come to see _him_. Only him. The door opening quickly had not been because, finding him presumably gone, she had believed she could rush out more easily but out of the worry that he had left her.

It made sense: she'd just almost died. She wanted assurance of his presence.

The only problem was, after having received it, she continued to stare, her pretty eyes studying him for quite a while. If she only wanted to make sure he was there and that she was safe a five second stare would gave done the trick, not one that was verging on a minute

She was like a shy, little girl peering from around the corner, trying to catch Santa. Or more closer, some teenager with a crush, checking to see if the object of her affection was closeby.

He wasn't sure if he should turn red in embarrassment or be flattered. Jenny, remembered hours before, had only checked to make sure of his absence but not his presence. And by the time she had been left outside of the hospital to die by some illicit lover, she had long before stopped looking at him like some highschool crush.

Nearing middle age, It was nice to know, with the Jennys and Graces in his life that a woman could still find him desirable. Then a voice, sounding like the speaking in unison of the last two women in his life, filled his head with the reminder, _"It's because she does not know you yet, Tom."_

That was when he raised his head, turned to look at her and asked, "Can I help you with something?"

The way Erin's face turned deep red, he knew that her mind had immediately gone to dirty places with the simple question and he found himself close to catching her blush. She was obviously inexperienced and the thought occurred to him that she was a virgin. He quickly pushed the thought to the side, labelling it as preposterous if not ludicrous in this day and age and giving her age. There were hardly any unbroken maidenheads in Los Angeles, let alone those belonging to women whom had closed in on thirty. More likely she had only had a few sexual encounters which had been far from satisfactory. She had seen a man whom was kind to her and whom was reasonably attractive and had instantly developed a fondness for him, just like some of the other women he had questioned during his early days on the force. Concerning lonely big girls, it was probably normal and should be expected.

 _"Like you checking out her tits and ass, Tom?"_ he heard the deceased Wander ask. _"Don't think for a second you ain't lonely too. Most of us need it. Believe me, I wouldn't have had a wall full of secrets otherwise."_

He knew this was true too, but was more interested in how Erin would react to his question than the voices of dead traitors in his mind. Would it be truth or lie she would tell him? The first would earn his respect, the latter his contempt, his patience with women whom said one thing and did another already past the breaking point.

* * *

"I wanted to make sure you were still here," I replied and saw that the man's expression softened. I had passed some test I had not even been aware of.

He smiled gently and looked to the floor before meeting my eyes again. "Yeah, I'm here."

I smiled at him too and I thought we shared another moment of mutual recognition and closeness before Grace, my nurse from before, appeared and spoiled it all.

"What's this?" she asked, coming up from behind Ludlow and catching us both by surprise. "She needs her rest and you need to do what us taxpayers pay you for."

The cop and the nurse shared an awkward and angry stare and I knew something was wrong as Garcia motioned me back into the room and Tom and I shared what equalled to an embarrassed glance.

"He giving you trouble?" the woman asked while I crawled back into bed.

"No," I answered. "He's nice."

She laughed bitterly and rolled her eyes, saying something in spanish under her voice. "You don't know him," she translated eventually.

"I take it you do? Very well?" I asked, expecting her reply.

"Ci," she answered. "I've been having sex with him for the past few years."

"Oh," I replied, disappointment stinging me more than the stitches now felt in my neck, my body telling me that my pain medication had run out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Keanu;
> 
> *Sniff* *Sniff* Well you know how I said yesterday that The Mandalorian fulfilled all of my needs storyline wise so I wouldn't need to read any fanfic for it? Well...after last night's episode I may need to go back on that. It was a beautiful and powerful episode but what it means...gah! 
> 
> So, everyone is excited over what a great episode it is but I just feel sad because I feel heartbroken over the future. So, while everyone is celebrating, could you just give me a hug, Keanu, and a little comfort sent my way tonight?
> 
> I guess, I feel bad too because the show hit its peak. When that happens in series land it's usually all downhill. It happened with the first season of Wiseguy. And I don't believe in my heart that Buffy was ever able to equal the power of Season 2 and that painful "Close your eyes."
> 
> I believe things need endings, that endings are important for stories and now I fear for mo Grogu in my life and a Mandalorian sorely in need of the little guy.
> 
> But I'll just picture you hugging me to cheer me up. You already have on this very cold Canadian December day. I saw the BRZRKR preview pages and that cheered me up and made me feel warm. The look beautiful, Keanu. So, I'll kiss you on your forehead now and say, "Thank you and goodnight, dear sir."
> 
> Much love,  
> Erin  
> XO XO  
> :D <3


	5. Silencer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ludlow talks to Biggs and I leave the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the man whom is the main reason for its existence: Crocodile Dundee.
> 
> I woke up with no real energy to write it. None. To quote the Joker: "Zero, zip, zilch, nada. My personal check for bupkis drawn on the First National Bank of Squadoo." I was gonna put it off until tomorrow.
> 
> My motivation level, to be honest, was on par with Blackbeard's from a scene in "Blackbeard's Ghost," which is actually one of my favorite comedies. Peter Ustinov deserved an Oscar for that, honestly. But anyway, I felt like that scene where Blackbeard is lying on the jumping mat and eating a hot dog (coincidently my supper tonight.) Dean Jones' character is shouting at him to help the Godolphins win the relay. But old Blackbeard just lies there unimpressed for his own reasons.
> 
> But then, I watched "Crocodile Dundee" and felt the urge to write a letter to a certain someone.
> 
> Which meant I had to spend the next hour or two writing this. :/ 
> 
> So this goes out to both Paul "Mick Dundee" Hogan and Keanu Reeves. Because Mr. Hogan made me want to get off the jumping mat to type those soon to follow this chapter's words: Dear Keanu...

In the morning, the next time he saw his ward, Tim Ludlow sensed that Erin was more distant than she had been before. It wasn't so much that she was cold towards him (he could tell from their brief interactions that her very nature was against it,) but rather because of her quietness and the fact that shebarely looked at him. Whenever she did, it was twinged with guilt. It wasn't hard to know what had caused it. The Detective inevitably connected it to Grace having been in to visit her.

"I've got to go and check in at the precinct," he commented, having received the text from Biggs about ten minutes ago. "I thought I'd tell you about it when you came to check on me; you never did."

She met his eyes for a second but it was very fleeting before she looked away again. "When do you get to sleep?" she asked.

Not "When will you be back?" but something concerning his welfare instead of hers.

"When it's possible," Tom replied. "Don't worry. You get used to it in this job..."

"You ever want to be something other than a cop?" she asked, moved away from her detatchment by simple human curiousity.

The stitches on her throat and the cut they hid both looked very nasty. His heart broke a little for her then, knowing the scar she would be left with. It would just be another insecurity for her to wear like her weight and her shyness. He could suddenly overlook that she had let Grace blacken her thoughts towards him.

"Yeah," he answered. "At least, a million times a day."

"Why do you stay?" she asked, still curious but also still avoiding his eyes.

"Because it's all I know, all I'm good at," he answered and then turned to walk towards the door, back to doing it some more, this time for her sake.

"Tom?" he heard her voice say before he reached the door. He turned to find her eyes raised to meet his before dropping like a piece of plaster from a decaying ceiling.

"My nurse, Grace...she told me that she's your girlfriend..."

Maybe she was on the verge of saying that he was a lucky guy, or that Grace was a lucky girl, but Tom's anger flared up for a hot second and he laughed. "Is that what she said?"

Erin looked up hopefully at his words,finally meeting his eyes for more than three seconds, and the cop suddenly realized that her distance was more caused by a morally admirable desire to keep her eyes off of another woman's property than because Grace had succeeded in poisoing her mind. "You two aren't..."

"It's news to me, if we are," Ludlow stated, knowing it wasn't _entirely_ true but wanting to impress upon Erin the fact that things weren't going great between him and the nurse.

"I'm sorry. I hope it works out," she said.

Judging from the guilty look returning to its former place in her eyes, Tom Ludlow would have bet all of his next paycheck on the belief that she was nothing of the kind. But, whereas, a lie from her would have annoyed him earlier in the night, the one spoken now in the daylight didn't upset him at all. She was doing it for his benefit, he knew, while she was also happily grateful that he was virtually single, warding off her having to abstain from having an interest in him.

"Thanks," Ludlow said in response and followed it with a, "Later."

* * *

I watched Thomas Ludlow walk out of the hospital room door, feeling happy and sad all at once. _"He's available,"_ I thought rashly. Grace Garcia _wasn't_ his current girlfriend and I could look at him without having Jesus' words about lingering eyes on temptation running through my already prone to guiltiness mind 24/7.

What it was telling me now, though, was that with my luck Thomas Ludlow's superiors would inform him that they were sending another bodyguard to look after me. I was sure that God would take the no longer forbidden fruit He had dangled in front of me and give it to another. That had felt my fortune so far.

But I wanted _Ludlow_.

I felt comfortable with the man more than I had any right to be, despite my shyness and my attraction to him. Being so comfortable with somebody, especially a man, was unique for me. Giving the situation I had unfortunately found myself in, I understood that my anxiety would be out in full force, making the unwanted thoughts I continually faced even more pronounced. If I had to put up with a stranger following me around (one I might not be as comfortable with,) I'd go out of my mind with compulsions yelling at me that if I did not do this or that right I'd end up dead.

I wanted the detective whom had been sent to me first to stay with me throughout what I was about to face: not only the demons in my head but the very real after me too.

* * *

As Tom sat in Captain James Biggs office, waiting for the damn man to show up, his eyes roamed around the room, noting that it looked almost exactly similar to when Jack Wander had brought him there. Staring at the photograph on Biggs' desk depicting a supposedly happy family, including a reportedly loving _wife_ , Ludlow wondered if what Jack had said about Biggs wanting him to suck his cock had held any truth. He sure as hell hoped not. The claim made every meeting uncomfortable between them. He had never been given the impression that the other cop swung that way but it was hard to tell on the force. Homophobia was so deeply rooted in the whole fucking organization that the pretty little family in the photograph could easily have been as unreal as if Biggs had chosen to place a work of Dali's on his desk.

There had been many secrets in the hidden space behind Warden's wall, after all. And not every family was ever as happy or perfect as they seemed

Images assaulted him, worse than any fist, of his own parents fighting. They'd never used a fist on each other; but to the boy he had once been their words had been as bad as bullets. They were just as loud and pierced through skin with just as much lethal and dreadful force. He remembered lying in bed, in pajamas dingy from having been washed to threads, holding the pillow to his ears and hoping it could drown out the sounds of the shouting.

Never worked.

Just like bullets from a gun, a pillow couldn't silence them. That lie was only good for the movies and tv shows he watched when he was a child and later as a far wiser adult. In real life, even with a silencer a gun still screamed deafeningly.

"...rry to keep you waiting, Tom," Biggs familiar voice said before the door behind him had been completely opened. "The whole shooting, not to mention a million other much less publicized crimes in the city, have the commishioner in quite the state. He can't handle it on his own."

"Guess not," Ludlow said lowly and watched with a frown as the other man sat behind the desk.

Biggs threw some papers into a drawer and then folded his hands on the table and stared at him. "So how is Miss Smyth?"

"As good as can be expected," he informed.

Biggs nodded. "No trouble at the hospital?"

"None."

"Good, good," the Captain stated. "It is very important to us that you keep an eye on her, Tom."

"Why her?" Ludlow asked.

Unlinking his fingers, his superior looked at the table. "Because of the attention this case is garnering. Because..."

"Not that," Thomas Ludlow snapped. "Why does her protection mean my freedom?"

The piercing, hounddog eyes of Janes Biggs stared into his. "Like I said, this case is getting a lot of attention."

"And?" Tom pryed further, remaining impassive.

Behind those blue eyes, the wheels were quickly turning. Ludlow saw them working. Perhaps they had made a mistake, he mused silently to himself. Biggs and those he worked for had manipulated him into killing Wander and his men single handedly for them. They'd seen him as just some dog that they could turn feral to carefully take down their enemy. They had not known that he would _learn_ from the whole incident, realizing now when he was being used, fooled or lied to.

"We need to make sure we keep an eye on our only good witness," the Captain told him the partial truth along with the same amount of bullshit.

Ludlow looked to his side and inhaled sharply. "And I'm out if I keep her safe?"

"You're out if you watch her, yes. That means moving in with her."

"I gathered that," Tom said but without the amount of annoyance he would have felt if he hadn't talked to Erin and liked her. Infact, he was almost grateful for the chance to get away from Grace for a while and that constant defeat.

"We don't want her left alone for a _second_ ," Biggs added, his fingers finding one another once again. "Got it?"

"That's usually what being a guard is," Tom replied with sarcasm.

"Unless, of course, we need to contact you."

There was something not right, the detective understood. It was a sensation crawling down his back and up his ass: disturbing and unpleasant. However painfully educated dog that he was now, he still couldn't place it. All he could do was nod without fully knowing what he was agreeing to.

Captain James Biggs nodded then too before saying, "Now get back to the witness before the vultures descend on her."

* * *

When Grace told me that I was to be sent back home, I was relieved but also worried that Tom Ludlow would be upset if he came to my room and found me gone.

"The precinct will tell him where you are," Garcia had stated.

"Am I allowed to leave on my own?" I asked, oddly more worried about disappointing the cop and my personal bodyguard if I got shot along the way.

The nurse looked at me sympathetically. "I know...I was just informed that we needed the bed. This place is seriously understaffed and the whole hospital is way past maximum capacity."

I was about to ask her for Tom's number but stopped myself, fearing it would sound dubious somehow. _"Dummy, she doesn't know you're attracted to her boyfriend,"_ my inner bully chided.

But _I_ knew; that was the difference.

Instead, I only asked her to phone a cab for me.

By the time I was changed, I hoped that the taxi would be waiting. I looked at myself in the mirror, my stitches making me look like a creation by Frankenstein in part and I sighed before heading out the door.

Things went well until I reached the hospital lobby. It was packed with reporters and I backed up in fear as I saw them notice me. At first they marked me as a nobody, until they saw my stitches and understood that I was a _somebody_ in their eyes.

That it was only because I had watched two people die made it all the more bitterly horrifying. I tried to push past them and towards the door and I managed it but with great difficulty, like Hercules performing one of his tasks.

"Please," I kept begging along with, "I just want to go home."

I was crying the more they pressed in on me, hurling their constant questions of, "Did you see who did it?" "Was your boss screwing a mobster's girlfriend," amongst several other decent and indecent ones.

Finally, I managed to make it out the front entrance, stumbling, only to find more rushing fowards to stampede me...

* * *

Tom Ludlow saw the crowd of journalists and reporters rushing for the entranceway to and saw and heard Erin's cry and her sad and lost face before it was lost in the mob.

He moved forward without thinking, bashing through the shiver of sharks and not caring which elbow met his elbow or which set of balls were introduced to his knee. He found her soon enough, taking her in his arms and pushing his way back through the crowd and to his car, walking past a waiting taxi.

The detective placed the crying woman into the passenger side and then rushed to enter through the driver's side door. He slipped behind the wheel and sped away, quickly, avoiding hitting a few of the reporters whom were foolishly trying to catch up with the moving vehicle.

About two minutes after they were safely back on the street, Ludlow felt Erin move from her seat in order to hold onto his arm fiercely. It represented protection to her now, the cop understood. She sobbed into it violently, her tears making the fabric wet. He was madde uncomfortable by her raw, naked emotion almost as equally as anytime he was called in to see Biggs. Only now his compassion was stirred as well.

He removed his hand from the wheel to pat the chubby one clutching his sleeve. "Better put your belt on," he warned gently, both an order to save himself and protect her.

She nodded once or twice, gave a little hitched choke and then followed his instructions. But not without giving his arm a small intimate kiss first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Keanu;
> 
> Watching "Crocodile Dundee" I had the urge to write you this letter. I was depressed for several reasons and had only managed a few words of this chapter. But then, while watching the film, I felt so excited I had to write to you.
> 
> I love "Crocodile Dundee." The first time I saw it, I was eight and it was just new at my parent's video store. It was the weekend, a Sunday, and my mom brought it in to my bedroom, saying we were going to watch it (her, Tara and myself) but we weren't to tell Kay --- about it, if she showed up, because then Kay would want it and we couldn't watch it because she'd rent it out.
> 
> Kay was this eccentric friend of my mom's. She wore a kerchief around her head because she was bald. See, she had anxiety issues and she kept pulling her hair all out. Only when she was dying in the hospital did it grow back in and mom always reminisced in love over how beautiful and curly it was. Kay's husband was Chinese. He'd always come in asking for "Bachelor Party." Only he pronounced it "Bitch-ler Party." It's unknown if this had any subconscious leanings from the time Kay and he had a fight and while he was sleeping she put a hot mustard plaster over his nether region. When he woke up, he was in agony and didn't know what had happened.
> 
> Well, we sat down to watch "CD" and who did show up but Kay, herself! She wanted to take us to this little flea market a few towns over. So, we had to stop the movie, pretend she hadn't interrupted us and go to this weird little market where they sold knock offs of famous toys. I still remember the Cabbage Patch Kids; they had orange faces! :O
> 
> But after that (I bought this toy of a white fuzzy thing sitting at a typewriter) we came back and finished the film.
> 
> I love that movie. In today's PC world it would probably not exist but I think it's pretty darn perfect as it is. I love that Mick is a poacher too. It doesn't hide that fact. Nor does it glorify it which is refreshing. It just sits there in all of its complicated glory not telling us how to feel about it.
> 
> And that ending scene...that still beats Sense Eight to me too in romanticism. From the moment the score starts with those recognizable notes to Sue's throwing her shoes off to the subway crowd being turned into messengers and finally Mick walking on top of the people to get to his lady love, it's beautiful and, here we go...breathtaking!
> 
> Speaking of un-PC films though, I forgot to mention my love for the first "Evil Dead" in my last note. I love how Ash has more of a Moe from the 3 Stooges look than the chiseled one from the sequel. I also love his sad discussion with Scotty, whom he's refusing to face the fact is dying. And the way Raimi returns to the closeups of Linda and Ash's eyes from their game of pretend sleeping during her burial. I'm a huge Ash/Linda shipper. And Tara and I are always quoting "Shut up, Linda!"
> 
> I guess, I might as well say what I was depressed about today and what affected my writing and motivation. It's hard to know if you read these or not. And it's hard to know what to say and what not to say. Who knows...maybe I already pissed you off so much even if you read them you are long gone. Those thoughts can drive me crazy. I'm still forever haunted by that Valley Girl that wrote to you and then you stopped writing to altogether. How do I avoid that? 
> 
> But if I censor myself you don't get to know me.
> 
> So that was frustrating me. And then worrying that we wouldn't get along outside of these stories. I had this picture book once. It told the tale of a city boy with a fake moon he kept in the window. When his country cousin took him to see the real moon, the city boy wasn't impressed and returned back to his fake moon. It was a sweet story...but I don't want to be like the real moon in that story to you. And I don't want you to be it to me either.
> 
> And when I see some of your real life friends...I know that they wouldn't be mine. I'm not saying that to be hurtful. I just know that so many of them don't seem like people I'd be compatible with. One I saw today actually frightened me and the more I read about her I actively disliked her. But they are your friends...so that's what you like. But then why would you like me? I am the sort of person that many of your friends and family may look down on. I'm not fooling myself there.
> 
> And once again, it returns to the fact that I'm not sure if you're still here or if you ever were. And all I can think of is this line from Lemony Snicket's "The Beatrice Letters": "You may never answer the questions that are most important to you, but nevertheless, sooner or later you must finish whatever file you have begun."
> 
> But I thought the same thing with Jordan too because I never knew what he was doing.
> 
> And I just don't want history repeating because that was so painful the first time around.
> 
> Much love,  
> Erin  
> XO XO  
> :D <3

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Keanu;
> 
> This series is now over 800,000 words long. I'm seeing how many words I can get before the official anniversary of it on December 22. Well, okay, it was officially started in January but I take that "Swedish Dicks" story as the true one. And, of course, I have to minus the two "reader" stories from the count then. But it's still over 800,000 words now.
> 
> That's about half as long as "Remembrance of Things Past". I know you've read that but it was on and off. And sadly, the longer this series gets I fear the less likely you are to read it all. And I doubt it would be looked on the same level as Proust, although, I get a laugh out of the saying, "Life's too short and Proust's too long." But I, anyway, I hope you will someday take the time to read the stories here. That's my Christmas wish! :D <3
> 
> Much love,  
> Erin  
> XO XO  
> :D <3


End file.
